“Well, he’s not in the immediate surrounds either. All dragon riders on campus have been out searching all morning. Classes have been put on hold until Miazydar has been located, but none of us have found any sign of him. Why would he’ve been exposed to keletha? Did he get into one of the middens?”
“No. I can’t give you details, but he was apparently carrying a large package of the pure poison the last time he was seen.”
Keel whistled. “Sit down and fill me in.”
I didn’t, not entirely. I couldn’t. Jez was right, I did have a soft spot for him, and while I thought he was dead sexy, I had no idea where his loyalties lay, a lot like his identical twin. I kept the details vague, which I could see was frustrating him, but I wasn’t laying all of my cards on the table for any Aravisians. “The way keletha works is to irritate the GI tract,” Keel said, “so much that keeping anything down is impossible until the inflammation dies down. The poison itself is excreted quickly, but the inflammation is the killer. It persists for quite some time for some reason, sometimes causing death due to dehydration.”
/> “You guys have got to look at developing IV technology.” I briefly described my understanding of how it worked, which had him intrigued. “But would a dragon be affected the same way?”
“There are so few instances of deliberate dragon poison, it’s difficult to say. The majority of what you’re looking at there in the textbook are naturally occurring foods they sometimes eat which cause issues. Keletha is made from a fungus that smells so disgusting that few animals would go near it in the wild.”
“So he could be somewhere, vomiting until he dies?” My mind helpfully projected a perfect image of what that would look like. Miazydar’s scales would dull to a reddish-brown, his sides heaving as he struggled to expel everything inside him. His wings spread haphazardly on the ground before him, too heavy to hold up, his neck snaking across the grass. His eyes growing cloudy as he gasped for breath, slowly glazing over until becoming completely lifeless. I felt something shift mentally. It wasn’t quite the reintroduction of our mental space, but almost like if someone was talking to me a room away. You could hear a small bit of noise but couldn’t make out the words. Miazydar?
“Tess,” Keel moved to sit next to me, placing a hand on my shoulder, “if he’s out there, we’ll find him. I promise.”
I hated that word, promise. It conveyed a confidence he had no right to have. Aravisia wasn’t a huge country, but it was big enough for my dragon to get lost in. He could be in a cave, under an outcropping, hidden in a stand of trees. He might have shrunk down, making him near impossible to see from the sky. He could’ve been taken as prey by a bigger animal or drowned in a lake as the poison hit.
Tears welled in my eyes, not because I was sad, but because I was angry and frustrated and sick of hitting the walls of my physical and mental limits. In Aravisia, I knew nothing, could do nothing to help him. “Tess…” Keel said, seeing the tears well and pulling me into his arms. I didn’t want to, I wanted to push him off and hold tight to my anger. It was all I had to keep me going. Instead, that feeling, the seductive all-consuming feeling of another body striving to provide you some sort of comfort slashed through all my wants and went straight for what I needed. I softened against him, the tears rolling freely now, his arms tightening as I began to sob, my chest working in that painfully spasmodic way as tear after tear forced its way out of me. I’m alone again, I thought, despite all evidence to the contrary.
And then I was lost, tossed around in the cyclonic winds of anxiety and pain. My thoughts couldn’t even fully form as I jumped from one terrifying conclusion to another. I imagined mine, Flea’s and Jez’s deaths a thousand times, along with Miazydar’s. I moved the university staff, the ADC and the Aravisian government around like chess pieces, creating more and more horrific scenarios, where the whole nation sought our demise. My sobs turned again now into some kind of primal scream, the sounds from my mouth little more than some kind of animalistic grunting as if I’d lost all higher functions. “Tess!” Keel said, pulling me away from his chest to check on me. “Tess, you’ve got to stop!”
My tears chose not to obey, they ran freely as I hung there, exposed and blinking against the bright light as he held me at arm’s length. Of course he did. Who would want to be anywhere near such a goddam fucking mess? I was disgusting. Snot streamed down my face, my mouth a sodden mess. Of course, Miazydar went. Of course, I’d lost the closest relationship I ever had. I always did. Apart from Ash, who did I have? I had associates and acquaintances. Everyone was fooled by the bright shiny façade I could only partially maintain and when I couldn’t, they left. I’d had drinks with some of the fighters at Battle Club and hung out with my cosplay mates, but who would sit with me through this kind of thing, making sure I was OK? Who would’ve held me tight until I was alright? Only my sister. Mum was appalled by emotional displays and Dad would’ve just felt ineffective and flustered. We always protected Dad. And now I was here, unable to get back to them, facing the long, possibly fatal, walk to Damorica because I’d lost my dragon, if they even let us leave. What could I do against a plasma spear now?
“Oh, Tess…” Keel said and drew out what looked like a handkerchief from his civvies shirt pocket and passed it to me. My ribs shuddered in that horrible way hysterical sobbing forces you to, but I wiped the worst of the mess away. Then what he did next surprised me. He pulled me close, so tightly there was no gap between his body and mine, the heat of it radiating out even through his uniform. His arms were like iron bands, providing the support mine couldn’t right now, holding me until the shaking and the tears began to slow, holding me until the storm began to abate.
I felt absolutely drained, as anyone does after a massive cry and something strange emerged from that. I was at an emotional ground zero, my internal landscape completely flat. I had no more fucks to muster for anything, even myself. I just rested against Keel, caught in the cage of his arms and for that instant, glad for that restriction. It meant I didn’t need to think or feel or work out what to do next for the moment. As I lay there, listening to the steady, soothing thud of his heart, I felt a shift inside me. It felt like deep in my chest something unfurled; it was the only word I could think of to describe it. It felt like a flower opening and then a tiny spark floated free. My mind hissed out, Miazydar?
Yes, I’m coming.
His voice was weak, little more than a whisper. So much so, I almost wondered if I’d conjured the sound myself, but I could feel it now, that fragile connection between us. I sat up straight, Keel’s arms falling away. “He’s coming.”
“Are you sure?” Keel said.
“Yeah, we can touch minds again.” I turned to look at Keel, acutely aware of the massive circle of tear stains on his shirt and my raw, tear scoured face. “God, I’m sorry…”
“Don’t be,” he said. His ever-present smile returned, but it was gentler. “I don’t know you very well, but I’d like to. I’m glad I could help. Are you feeling better?”
“Yeah, thank you.”
“Alright, well, now that your dragon’s safe, should we try and hit the books?” I nodded, feeling relieved and weirdly disappointed we were back to business. “Let’s have a look at the syllabus they want you to get through.”
21
Miazydar appeared in the lounge room in a form no bigger than a rabbit as we were wading through the infighting that happened during the Killkin War of Succession. My eyes jerked up as he dove straight for my arms, nestling in the hollow. He was so small it was almost frightening. “Are you OK? Where have you been?” I asked, but he just curled up and went to sleep, his head resting on my forearm.
“Let’s have a look,” Keel said, moving in closer. “He’s reduced in form. Perhaps that’s a defence mechanism to preserve his strength and fight the inflammation. I don’t want to touch him, he’s obviously exhausted. He’s been through something, that’s for sure.”
“I’m just so glad he’s back,” I said, hunching my body over his, feeling like anything I could do to protect him was good.
“Me too. I’ll go and grab Professor Hand. It would be good to get someone to look him over.” I nodded. “You going to be OK here for a bit?”
“Now he’s back, yeah.”
Professors Hand and Lane came by. They wanted to move him but I refused, my hand straying to the gun when they tried to insist. They didn’t know what it was, but the sleek metal profile obviously conveyed ‘danger, Will Robinson!’ Lane had her phlebotomy kit out again, wanting to get those samples, but even Hand insisted that blood-letting was not in Miazydar’s best interest right now. In the end, they just nodded their heads, said he looked like he was healing from whatever had happened and that I needed to bring him to see them when he was better. I eyed the needles Lane seemed to carry everywhere and considered whether that was a good idea.
Flea walked in, carrying yet another pile of books as they left. His eyebrows shot up when he saw M lying there, still sleeping. He placed them quietly on the table and crept over. He didn’t say anything, just looked up at me w
hen he could see M slept easily, his browny green eyes saying everything that was needed. He settled down next to me on the couch, his arm laying across the back of it, behind my neck.